Environmental adaptation and selection: where are the parents and the public?

Despite a public and professional claim that America's schools are not changing at a rapid enough pace, a rather significant list of reform efforts can be mentioned: school-based management, integrated social-service delivery, and revised standards (e.g. National Council Teachers of Mathematics) to name just a few. The extent to which these reforms have actually improved education is not clear; but they have created an outcry from many parents and the public-at-large. It is by no means apparent that the public understands and supports the drive toward systemic reform and coherent educational policy that is behind Goals 2000. For some parents, such recent reform efforts have brought into question, once again, public confidence in education.